Francis Marion

Francis Marion (1732-27 February 1795) was a Brigadier-General of the Continental Army and South Carolina militia during the American Revolutionary War. Marion was nicknamed "the Swamp Fox" for his ability to ambush the British Army during the war, and he eluded defeat by the British while fighting against Charles Cornwallis' numerically-superior army.

Biography
Francis Marion was born in 1732 in Berkeley County, South Carolina, and he enlisted in the South Carolina militia during the French and Indian War. Marion served under William Moultrie in a campaign against the Cherokee in 1761, destroying villages and crops to starve the Cherokee into surrendering. On 21 June 1775, he was commissioned as a Captain in the 2nd South Carolina Regiment, serving under Moultrie again at the Battle of Sullivan's Island in 1776. Marion was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in September of that year, and he took part in the failed siege of Savannah in 1779. In 1780, he evaded capture in the siege of Charleston, as he was on leave due to a broken ankle. Marion was nearly crippled, but he raised 20-70 troops and began a guerrilla campaign against Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. His forces launched quick surprise attacks against the British and Tory forces, and the people between the Santee and Pee Dee were rallied to Marion's cause due to his promises of plunder and threats of violence. In November 1780, when Banastre Tarleton failed to capture or kill Marion, he nicknamed him "the Swamp Fox". Marion took Fort Watson and Fort Motte during the campaign to recover the South from 1780 to 1781, and he commanded Nathanael Greene's right flank at the Battle of Eutaw Springs. In 1782, his brigade grew disheartened as the British sortied from Charleston, and in June he had to put down a Loyalist uprising on the Pee Dee River. In August, he returned to his plantation, and in December 1782 the British withdrew from Charleston, ending the war in the South. Marion had to borrow money to buy slaves, as his plantation had been burned to the ground and his slaves had fled to fight for the British Army. He died at Belle Isle Plantation at the age of 63 in 1795.